Illinois Science Council presents "Chemistry of Honey"

Illinois Science Council presents "Chemistry of Honey" with the Nature Museum
Saturday, October 29, 2011 from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM, Chicago, IL

In keeping with our “Chemistry for Adults” series celebrating the International Year of Chemistry, ISC offers yet another tasty program -- Chemistry of Honey (aren’t you glad I didn’t say “in bee-keeping with..”? Groan.)

This sweet program will delight and enlighten you with what bees actually do to make honey, how it’s harvested and other fun facts. We’ve got an entomologist – that’s a bee expert – Dr. May Berenbaum of University of Illinois-Champaign, together with a chemist – that’s a chemistry expert – Dr. Shelby Hatch of Northwestern University to explore the extraordinary chemical properties of honey and its many varieties.

• Why doesn’t honey “go bad” even if you leave it in the cabinet for months or years?
• What are the different viscosities of honey? Does it affect taste?
• Does the amount of water in honey matter?
• What about honey’s antibiotic properties?
• What the heck is the “osmotic effect” of honey and what is Mānuka honey?

You’ll conduct experiments yourselves to explore the wonders of this golden goodness. There may be balloons and beakers and ph involved, and perhaps refractometers, but there will be definitely be tastes to tantalize your tongue.

Tickets are $15 (includes museum admission) and available only online. This program is in collaboration with the Notebaert Nature Museum and Slow Food Chicago as part of their series on bees and beekeeping.

No science prerequisites necessary. Sign up now -- space is limited! Past ISC programs in this series have included the chemistry of beer, whiskey, chocolate and cosmetics. Visit IllinoisScience.org for more details. Check for ticket availability:
http://es.eventbrite.com/event/2211352214/efblike

I met the woman who is putting this together a few weeks ago when I was volunteering at Garfield Conservatory. She's got a fantastic concept of science programming and lectures for non-scientists-- adults! I only regret that this program is the same date and time as the Culinary Historians Austrian Bread Baking lecture and demo. I also told her the Canning-Swap-o-Rama was right after the conclusion of her program and could also make it difficult for me to attend.

If someone else goes, please post, I'm really interested in this.

Sweet, sweet honey I will miss.

I couldn't decide b/w them both either....decided to go to the honey one. Will let you know how it goes. Please post about the bread- would love to hear how it goes.

I've got my proxy going, since he didn't go fishing this weekend.

Saw him there! Afternoon was great fun learning about honey - speaker Dr. Berenbaum was incredible- she had a lot of interesting things to share. The 4th annual bee forum is Nov. 19 @ Garfield Park Conservatory.

How was the Austrian Bread lecture?

Hi,

How about strudel made in real time? We didn't leave until 1 pm, because the strudel didn't leave the oven until 12:45 or so. I hope my film clips of his technique worked out, because his stretching technique was quite interesting and fast.

Regards,